Today we celebrate a very special day.  I have been looking forward to this day for some time now, because I never realized just how special this day was until the last few months.  I have always loved and appreciated my mom so much, but never had any clue how much she went through and sacrificed to be a parent.  With my experiences as of late, I realize any appreciation that I had shown was insufficient. 

As I am beginning to get a glimpse of what being a parent means more and more each day, this Mothers Day is more spcecial than any one has ever been in the past.  It is dedicated to all of the moms in my life, including my wonderful mother, my fantastic mother-in-law, and or course, the newest mom who means more to me than I can ever express, my wife, Rachel, who is celebrating her first Mothers Day.

Rachel and I celebrated the arrival of our daughter, Belle Candler, on January 15.  Since that day, I have been looking forward to celebrating Mothers Day, because I knew it would mean so much – I just didn’t realize yet just how special it would be. 

While I tell myself that I honor my wife all the time as being the best mommy in the world, learning first-hand from the two existing holders of that title (i.e., both of our moms), I know I do not show my appreciation adequately or enough.  So, I want to make this day special for her in many ways.

Words cannot adequately express the love and appreciation that I have for the moms in my life.  Of all the years I never truly understood what Mothers Day meant for my mom, this year I am able to realize first-hand just how special it is. 

Seeing my wife be a mother to our little girl has without a doubt been one of the best experiences I could have ever imagined.  In fact, it was totally unimaginable.  There is no way to understand this feeling without being in this position.  This was one of those unexpected things – not because I didn’t think she would be a great mother – but because before your baby is born, you really don’t realize those types of special things.  While pregnant or trying to get pregnant, you always think about your child, what they will look like, what kind of personality they will have, hoping they are healthy and planning all of the fun things you want to do with them.  But, when you are finally holding your child in your arms, your heart is literally overwhelmed with feelings that you never even knew existed or were possible.

Things like watching Belle and Rachel snuggle together in bed on Saturday mornings; or how Belle smiles at Rachel whenever she is looking at her; or when Rachel sings worship songs to Belle and you can tell she just feels safe.  The delivery was amazing; all of the little development things are so much fun; but, it is these seemingly little things that can absolutely break down even the toughest and hardest of hearts.  It is overwhelming, because you never realized that you could experience love like this, yet you are seeing it as clear as day right in front of your face.

Watching the bond of a mother and her child is literally one of those miracles that God does everyday, but it will never be adequately explained or rationalized.  There is no psychological, sociological or medical explanation for this.  There is no book or research study that can map how it works or quantify its effect.  It is pure love between a mother and her child, which can only originate with our Creator’s love for each of us.  It is not a natural thing – it is a one hundred percent pure God thing. 

So, that’s my little glimpse of heaven – watching my wife love my daughter.  How anyone can question the existence of God when they see or experience that, I will never know.  That is why this day is so special to me and I truly hope it’s something shared with everyone else! 

This is dedicated to my wife Rachel, and my mom, Kay, both of whom are blessings in my life that I never deserved and could have never imagined, but I was blessed with having the best women surrounding me throughout my life.  What’s just as special is that now I get to watch my wife pass that love on to my daughter, so that someday (a long time from now) she can know what it is truly like to experience this kind of love and joy that I am experiencing today.

-MAR

On numerous occasions lately, the discussion or question as to how I get into investing has come up.  “Investing” is one of those topics that it seems every guy wants to talk about, yet I have found that very few people really understand what it means or entails.  Further, the fact that this ambiguous term means essentially something different to each person also makes this a subject almost like religion or politics in today’s society. 

Without getting too philosophical or sounding egocentric in what I am saying (I am not bragging at all; just describing my background), a number of people have seen my trading screen in my office or sat with me in the breakroom watching CNBC while eating lunch and asked why I watch the markets so much.  Usually, I just say it’s because I just like watching this kind of stuff (indeed I do), but occassionally I will actual explain the fact that I am an avid investor.  I leave out the fact that I easily spend more time throughout the day thinking about the markets than I do anything else it seems, but without explaining in detail what my ambitions and goals are, most just kind of shrug it off.  Again, this is why I typically just don’t even go there.

As I was thinking about it, I thought it may be a good topic to write about, because where people got their start and how they gained experience in this business is a topic of discussion amongst investors, traders, and general business/finance types that do anything within the world of finance. 

I realize that many people don’t care about investing or managing their own money.  The far majority of people in the world don’t have the ability to invest at all.  Of the small percentage of Americans and Europeans (and other nationalities) that do, the far majority of them do not manage their own money.  They prefer to leave that to their financial advisors, brokers, financial planners or simply their 401Ks.  This is just how it should be, and I sincerely wish that more people throughout the world could have the ability to do this. 

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Sidebar:  This is why I think NGOs that provide microfinancing services are some of the best organizations out there and most effective at battling poverty throughout the world.  Providing the opportunity for individuals to invest in themselves by receiving a relatively small and inconsequential loan, which can ultimately lead to the development of a successful business, is the essence of true market capitalism, in my opinion.  This is economics at its purest and it’s absolutely fantastic.  I have done a small amount of research on microfinancing in Sub-Saharan Africa, and if I ever can start that foundation that I want to do later in life, this will undoubtedly be a signficant component thereof.  More on that later …

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I am not one of those people, though, who gives up control of managing their funds.  I have done that in the past, and did fine, but ever since I got started investing a number of years ago, I knew it was something I love and that passion has only grown. 

Let me also point out here that a passion for the markets alone is no reason to manage your own investments.  It requires a great deal of effort, time, learning, experience and just hard-nose dedication.  You have to want it, you have to like it, and you have to be willing to work for it.

With that said, I opened my first trading account with Datek in 2002.  I was in my second or third year of undergrad, and my buddy and I were doing separate internships, but we ended up trading together more than worked at our summer jobs (I did, at least).  We would call each back and forth 10 times a day.  He had much more experience at it than I did, so I was learning from him and following his lead.  It was an absurdly small amount of money too.  At one point, I think I was down to like $100 in my account.  Obviously, not an effective way to make money, but I can’t think of any more effective way to start learning. 

This is where I started learning about the markets and every lesson I learned was from something negative happening (i.e., losses).  But, when you’re losses are like $10 (as opposed to $10,000), it’s not too painful.  I know, I know … accepting losses is heretical to traders, but I’m talking about my first experiences here and trust me, I learned more from these experiences than I ever could any other way.

Let me take a second here to describe what it was that made a political science major so enamored with public securities trading and investing in the public capital markets that he would risk his money he should have been spending out with his friends.  While I did my fair share of goofing off during college, the entire time I really just wanted to get through it, so I could get out and make some money in business.  I was always very entrepreneurial (in high school, my friend – the same one mentioned above – acted like the school’s mafia, running a sports booking service for our classmates.  We even went as far as getting one of the football players to do our collecting for us.  Not exactly the most ethically friendly thing, I know, but looking back, it was very entrepreneurial), whether it was as a young kid following my mom around the political world and working on campaigns, various jobs in high school, starting my own consulting practice in college, or e-trading. 

The coolest thing about managing my investments online was that any person, regardless of age (18 older, I guess), experience, credentials, etc could open their own account and trading operation.  Now, just like anything, if they don’t know what they’re doing, they won’t be up and running very long, but to me it was the coolest thing to be able to make money online doing something that I always thought of doing.  Was doing it just because I could the best reason?  Absolutely, not and that wasn’t why I was doing it.  But, as I was sitting at my desk during my little summer internship and secretly researching companies instead of working, I felt like I was learning something and making money at the same time, not to mention enjoying it thoroughly.

As time has passed, I have learned there is much more to it than just setting up the account and going at it, but as a beginner, that just attracted me so much, and was incredible encouragement to getting me where I currently am, and I know it will be a major factor in getting me to where I want to go.  I still think it is so cool to open up my trading screen each day and to spend time doing my analysis, putting my experience and education to work in making money.

Back to the backstory, though, I goofed off in my classes throughout college, thinking more about what I wanted to do outside of class, meaning the money I wanted to make through various business ideas.  During my last year of college, I began to limit my trading focus and instead decided to get back to politics, which was the world I had grown up around and thought was what I wanted to do after college.  It was also election season and I aimed to go out on a campaign after finishing school.  That last year, however, I went as far as setting up a boutique consulting practice, harnessing the experience of my other best friend (who he and I grew up around politics together our whole lives), as well as that of my mom, who was a career political consultant and Congressional Chief of Staff. 

That endeavor went well, in terms of allowing me to work within politics, make some money, and once again, learn one of those lessons that is most valuable (i.e., through failure).  This venture was not a failure for me, but many of the campaigns that I worked on or contributed to were losses, which isn’t exactly a failure, but were discouraging none the less.  The lesson that I learned, though, was that I really did not know what I was doing, from a business management standpoint.  I had learned a lot about political strategy and I had learned about the markets, but I had no clue how to manage a business. 

During this time and as my political work continued shortly beyond college graduation, I also realized that I did not want to work in politics.  A job whereby one must work 18 hour days in bad conditions doing jobs that really are not fun, all while being away from your home for extended periods of time and making practically no money, was easy to get tired of.  I burnt out quickly, but that is not uncommon, especially since I had been around that world my entire life, and I really wanted to do other things, including getting back to the world of investing.

One thing I did not do well throughout this time was make the effort to get more business and finance education.  It’s all relative here, because most will tell you that they learned more on the job than you ever can in the classroom, which I agree with, but I should have been more dedicated early on to understanding the principles behind finance and the markets.  It wasn’t until after I had been out in the corporate world for a couple of years that I started realizing this and taking the time to get back to basics, so I could understand the more advanced things that I wanted to do.

After working in the 2004 campaign cycle managing a statewide race, I left politics for good and was hired as a “Financial Analyst” for a large financial brokerage focused primarily on real estate.  I was working within the firm’s consulting division, because I did have some management (i.e., think project management) experience, but it was interesting that I was hired with this title, because I had very little financial experience, no accounting knowledge and I admitedly worked a total of maybe two days on financial related work in this job.

That was fine, because I got the best experience than I could have ever imagined in this work.  I learned more in one year than I learned in four years of college and all my years around politics.  I essentially received an on-the-job MBA in this job, because it was great work to learn on and I had awesome teachers and mentors in my role.  Most of all, though, I was empowered to make decisions, but they had to be informed decisions.  Also, I was allowed to fail, and when I did, they rode me for it, but in a great way that helped me learn and not to do it again.  My mentors there gave me responsibility, but it was up to me to make sure that I used it right and ultimately delivered. 

It was during this time that I started to get back into watching the markets.  I wasn’t ready to start putting more money into trading, because I had, by this time, realized that there was way more that I needed to learn.

I eventually decided to leave this job, although I really enjoyed it, because I had the opportunity to join my family’s business, where I knew I would be able to do something.  This was going to be my path into the real world of investing and finance, even though I didn’t know at the time how it would work out. 

Ultimately, I am still very young and early on in my career.  I am working in the family business, which has grown considerably (and certainly is no longer that small family company it once was), and I am starting to be able to do my own things.  My money management endeavors have grown, as I have grown.  I am finishing my masters, with which I decided to do a novel thing of actually going to grad school to learn something, rather than just go to network and make contacts (although I have done that too).  I have been dedicated to being a sponge, learning everything from the  basics to advanced tools that will help me be a better investor and trader. 

Today, I trade actively; everyday; and I probably think about trading every minute in one way or another.  I am not obsessed – I have just grown to really enjoy it.  I have found something that I’m passionate about and that I think I can do well (at times, perhaps).  I have learned more in the past five years than I could have ever imagined, and most of it has been through experience.  It’s been great, because it was only a couple of years ago when I didn’t even know what a hedge fund was, and now, I am thinking about how I am going to start my own fund one day.

Let me also say this … while I have grown a lot in recent years, I also realize that I still have tons to learn and much experience to gain.  I am not naive to think I am going to start a fund tomorrow, or next year or in five years (even though there are a number of people in their late 20’s that have started very successful hedge funds).  But, I am working towards something and I have a vision, even if it isn’t an actual plan.  Planning won’t make any difference, but vision makes all the difference in the world. 

So, today, I spend my time fulfilling my day-to-day job responsibilities while also working to grow a private investment arm of our company that focuses on venture investments.  Throughout all of it, I probably spend more time focusing on my trading and personal investing than anything.  My overall hope is to continue and grow my public securities trading, while also growing our investments that are “private equity” centered (not in the sense of LBO, Blackstone/KKR private equity, but managing private capital for venture staged investments in private companies).  Soon I hope to move to these roles 100% full-time, whereas, now I am spending about half of my time on this.  I will be there eventually, but hopefully soon, because my only real plan right now is to learn and gain experience.  Whether it is through formal education, training or first-hand experience, the  name of the game for me right now is learn, learn, learn!

I have been talking about it for some time now, but this article today from the Wall Street Journal re-affirms my outlook on commodities.  According to a survey of economists, the majority responded that they believe the surge in oil and food prices does not represent a bubble forming. 

Fifty-one percent of the respondents said demand from China and India was the prime factor in soaring energy prices, and 41% said the demand was the chief contributor to rising food costs. Constraint in supply was cited second most often; 20% blamed supply problems for higher food prices, and 15% for increasing energy prices.

The price per barrel of crude went up to $124 in after hours trading today, ultimately settling at $123.69 during daytime trading hours.  The reason for the increases, as affirmed above, is primarily related to supply issues.  We’re also taking into consideration supply disruption situations in Nigeria and Europe, but as I have said in the past, I think that type of news involves a lot more speculation when affecting the prices. 

A key interesting point from the WSJ survey was this:

The survey, conducted May 2-6, showed that the 53 respondents, on average, expect the price of crude to fall to about $105 by the end of next month and to about $93 by the end of the year. (Crude settled at $123.69 Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.) Their expectations for overall inflation continue to rise. They expect the consumer-price index, which rose 4% year-to-year in March, to increase 3.6% in June from a year earlier.

This is another area where I am in lock-step with the forecasts.  I have said for a while now that oil will pull back some in the spring/summer.  Originally, I had said possible to $85 (or somewhere thereabouts), but I think now that we’re approaching that $125 target, we’re probably going to be looking at the low $100’s, in my opinion.  Anything further than that, in my analysis, would have to involve some significant supply developments in a relatively short time.  Not impossible, but I just don’t see that happening.

Yesterday, Goldman released a report saying that oil will hit $200/barrel within the next two years.  All I can say is that I picked a great time to start focusing my complete investment strategy on commodities …

I have finally had the chance to setup a Stockpickr account and I have created one portfolio so far.  This is a great tool to track portfolio performance and test different ideas without risking any capital.  It’s also a great source for ideas from other more experienced traders. 

Previously, I wrote about my Marketocracy funds that I have established.  While this is a fun system to manage different types of virtual funds, the funds are setup as mutual funds.  I am not a mutual fund fan; therefore, it isn’t exactly my cup of tea, and I probably will not be very active with the virtual funds that I established on that platform.  Stockpickr is a much more efficient way to track trading strategies, rather than attempting to setup a complete mutual fund (which requires way more time, even for a “play fund” than just picking some stocks and tracking them). 

Save my profile and feel free to track my performance. 

I haven’t made a MarketBook post in a few days because I have been so busy conducting research on what it is like to be a completely undisciplined trader whose only consistent aspect is the high level of inconcistency and lack of strategy involved in the trading process. 

That’s my sarcastic way of being hard on myself, saying that I have been horribly violating my own investing/trading strategies within the past week.  I’ve been making stupid decisions around earnings plays and have utterly failed at playing off volatility.  I am quickly learning by experience (i.e., the hard way) that sticking to one’s investment/trading strategy is rule #1 in this game. 

When I have stuck to my strategy, I’ve done great.  Indeed, one of my accounts is up over 13%.  Here I have adopted a conservative day trading strategy, whereby I am often even (i.e., out of all positions) at the close of each trading day.  Some positions have been extended, but in most cases, I am trying to really hold on to these gains.

On another one of my accounts, I am down about 3.5%.  This is not too bad in the big scheme of things, and much of it is still related to the past couple weeks’ events around Microsoft (MSFT), but I have had small losses around some foolish positions that I took, trying to go for small gains here and there with a heavy earnings week, as well as volatility around commodities. 

The best position I have had so far is Monsanto (MON), which has been a steady gainer for me in both accounts.  This is my one long play that I have embraced as an effort to make a long-term move into the agriculture commodity space. 

I did come out on top of the news around the Microsoft-Yahoo! talks blowing up.  Yahoo! tanked, Mister Softy gained, so I shorted Yahoo!, then bought on the rebound, ultimately selling out completely before lunchtime.  That was fun, and I was happy about profiting from Yahoo’s effort to completely eliminate value for their long-term shareholders.  What a sorry company … I don’t even like using my Yahoo email account or Yahoo! Finance, so I’m working on that, but I digress.

Currently, the market is down on news from Fannie Mae missing targets and raising capital, in addition to UBS’ missed calls and their job cuts announced today.  However, oil is up over $121 a barrel, once again shattering speculations around supply/demand issues.  We’re inching closer and closer to the $125 price target, where I think we’ll see considerable pullback.  I also think Gold will start pulling back more and more, even though metals recovered from last week’s declines.  I still maintain that agriculture will pullback a little when commodities in general have some declines, but not as much as energy, and I think there will be a quick turnaround, whereby ag will recover and gain significantly.  I am long the global ag sector, but more on that later …

The first Saturday in May marks the annual shareholder meeting for Berkshire Hathaway, which is more like a Capitalist Carnival than a typical shareholders’ meeting.  Now, I am not one of those investors that follows every word of Warren Buffett, but you have to respect his success and the way he has acheived it.  But, as CNBC has spent a better part of today talking about the event from the weekend or showing special coverage from behind the scenes in Omaha (which was actually pretty interesting), it got me wanting to learn more about the early years of Buffett’s life that played a big role in leading him to where he is today.

It was interesting reading about Buffett’s education and molding in the world of business.  I found it very interesting that as he sought out the opportunity to study under great economists and investors Dodd and Graham he chose the route of a masters of science in economics, rather than the MBA, which is most commonly seen today.  I suspect this was because MBA programs may not have been developed yet, but this ultimately hits the nail on the head as to why I chose a MSc in economics, rather than an MBA. 

In the first half of the 20th Century, many investors were economists at heart (and in practice), while many economists represented the true market players in those days.  In my opinion and from my perspective, this is how it should be and this is exactly why I am inclined to listen more to people with specialty training in various aspects of the markets and finance, rather than someone who was good at networking during their business school experience. 

As I have said before, I am not bad-mouthing business school programs, degrees or graduates.  Indeed, these programs are very worthwhile and advantageous for the recipients.  However, it was my preference not to seek a generic business education, which focused on a lot of material that has no interest or relevance to me.  This is another reason why I chose the route I did. 

Back to Buffett … another thing that I found interesting about his development is the way he used ingenuity and dedication to acheiving his own success.  He sought out the experience and education first and then went out to apply it in his own endeavors.  Today, he is the world’s richest man. 

Wikipedia has a good backgrounder on Buffett with a timeline providing some good details of his life.  Whether you agree with him or not, or whether you’re a BH shareholder or not (I am not), you’ve got to be impressed with him. 

Every major publication tonight has been reporting on the fact that Microsoft has backed off their bid for Yahoo!  I interpret this not as the start of Yahoo’s downfall, because they have been going down essentially since the company started, but this is a pivotal point in their decline.  While the quasi-popular and unnecessary internet company was previously just making a gradual downhill decline, they have now taken a leap and will continue rolling down the hill until they eventually fall off the cliff into darkness forever.  They will be long forgotten.

Ok, perhaps I am over-reacting a little; and, yes, maybe I am being a little melodramatic with the whole thing, but come on, this is ridiculous. 

Let’s get something straight - I am no big fan of Microsoft … especially since I wasn’t able to sell the stock fast enough last week after it declined significantly from a semi-negative earnings performance.  But, I don’t think they are some great company and I could care less that Gates was a college drop-out who went on to become the world’s richest man for a short time.  I don’t think their products are the best either, but then again, I like them much more than the uber-trendy Apple and Google folks, who make me feel a hundred times less of a d*&$%!bag when I see the guys that started those companies. 

The point here is that from a strategic perspective, Yahoo! could have taken the best option that they will ever be given with Microsoft.  Instead, they didn’t want to give in to Ballmer, Gates et al, as if screwing over their shareholders for stupid reasoning would make them less of sell-outs or something.

Yahoo! is an example of a company that has literally hit a brick wall in their business model.  They cannot sustain growth and they are not positioned well enough to be competitive in this volatile market for much longer.  Further, they don’t have the financial strength to make any strategic moves, such as an acquisition, which could deliver market share, because there is only one real chunk of market share left in this space, which belongs to Google, and that is … well, unavailable.  Yahoo! is a dead stick. 

They had an amazing opportunity here, though, to be a company that lived on.  Sure, perhaps they would have had to live on answering to guys in Washington or with a Microsoft brand accompying their products, but at least they would have been able to live on.  More importantly, they could have made a move that would bring value to shareholders.  Instead, they have decided against benefiting shareholders, and instead succombed to the egos of their senior managers.  It’s sad.  Personally, I hope the hit at the bottom is hard for them.  I am sorry for the current shareholders who have had to put up with a company like this, but I, for one, would like to ride their stock shorted all the way down. 

Ok, so again, perhaps I am being overly dramatic here.  Maybe I’m even being a little harsh.  But, seriously guys, we’re in the middle of a serious credit crunch and I don’t know if these guys have looked at the markets lately, but tech isn’t exactly the poster-child for market strength.  Further, the firms that do represent strength in these markets (and “strength” here is very much a loose term) … well, aren’t Yahoo! 

So, Yahoo! has turned down a pretty enticing deal … better than they should have been offered.  Yet, they turned it down.  Maybe I will be wrong.  Maybe they will live on by themselves and even find some new way to deliver value to shareholders.  I doubt it. 

New rankings have been released by “The Good University Guide,” a respected ranking body of academic institutions within the UK, showing SOAS (the lead school for my MSc programme at the University of London) has moved up considerably in the rankings.

SOAS ranked 9th in the UK overall, moving up 15 spaces from the previous report.  In the Economics category, SOAS ranked 18.  You can access the full rankings here or click here for the economics rankings.

The school has regularly been ranked among the top universities within the UK and is known throughout the world as a leading academic institution.  In previous years, SOAS has been ranked in the top five of all UK universities, alongside the London School of Economics (another University of London school), Cambridge and Oxford, by the Financial Times and other publications.  Further, for many years, the school has been ranked within the top 50 schools in the world.  SOAS is also ranked very high in terms of the amount of research and published works that are generated from the school’s academic leaders, as well as the volume of students going into a wide variety of careers in the UK and globally.

Click here for more information on these rankings, as well as more information on the school and its programmes.

When the polls starting turning, Barrack all the sudden becomes outraged.  Just a few days ago, Obama was standing by his friend and minister, stating that he should be off-limits to political attacks.  Yet, today Barrack Hussein was making his own political attack against the very same minister that he was supposedly standing by just a few days ago.

But he’s not a typical politician, right?!? I mean, he’s different.  His talk of hope and change is what America needs … right?  I mean, surely he can’t be a total fraud and clueless to reality.  Surely he isn’t like every other political candidate who will change his views as soon as the polls start going against him.  No one that says “pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it,” could be bad in any way … right?!?  

Give me a break …

We’re starting to see a turn in this race.  The scared look under Obama’s face is like a deer in the headlights.  He knows better than anyone that he is very close to losing any and all ground he has gained in recent months.  Why else would he turn so quickly against Rev Wright, who he has defended up until this point?!?  And, it comes right before major primaries where his opponent, Hillary Clinton received a key endorsement from North Carolina’s Governor. 

Let’s just be clear what we’re talking about here.  This is one of many quotes from the “good reverend of retardation” …

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God d*mn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God d*mn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God d*mn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” - Jeremiah Wright

Here’s what Obama said about “his friend” Rev Wright last month: 

“I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.” – Barrack Hussein Obama

I feel like this is one of those old commercials where the guy is cooking eggs in a frying pan and the voiceover says this is your brain … now, this is your brain on drugs.  That’s what I envision with an Obama presidency:  this is your brain (and we see Americans interacting normally) … this is your brain after Obama is President (pictures of Americans overcome by stupidity, foaming at the mouth and banging their heads into walls).

Any questions????

*NOTE:  Click here for some more quotes from our favorate Senator representing the Illinois Association of Insane Asylums and his favorate minister.